Denver Post columnist Ed Quillen, of Salida, Colorado, coined (or at least popularized) the term Stupid Zones, and has had a long running discussion about them.
The idea is that some places, while they are wonderful places to live most of the time, are in places where there is a high risk of natural disasters. In Colorado, this mostly consists of places where there are high fire, landslide and avalanche risks. But, flood plains, coastal areas subject to hurricanes or tsunamis, active volcanos, and ring of fire earthquake zones also fit the profile.
Quillen has argued that while development should be permitted in those places, that public resources, including fire control, disaster relief funds and subsidized insurance arrangements should not be used to support this development. Today, I revisit the idea in a larger and less abrasive context. I suggest that we need to, in addition to recognizing the predictable inevitability of natural disasters, to think in terms of living in harmony with elements of nature that we cannot overcome in how we use land and how we live, rather than purely trying to conquer nature.
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